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Tuesday, July 18, 2017

2018 Toxin - An Alt-Right Sampler

There's Hacking, but There's Also "Targeted Propaganda."

After the Trump Catastrophe, we need to be using the right words.

The US domestic media has been plying the "hacking" idea fast and loose. Just to make things painfully clear, "hacking" means prying one's way into someone else's computer and "stealing" private data from the files stored there.

"Hacking" is what happened to the DNC when the Russians managed to copy the Hillary campaign's email files. After that the stolen content was repackaged as a truly outrageous glop of "breaking news" and spread across the domestic media, the hope was that something to be found there would cripple the Clinton candidacy. It turns out that these "high hopes" for the revelation were not really going to amount to much.

So, THAT's "hacking" in the purest sense of the process.

However, there was another "hacking" scheme which turned out to be significantly more frightening. The basics were roughly the same as what happened to the DNC, but the results were exquisitely more material.

The "hackers" penetrated dozens [probably hundreds] of precinct voter registration files in 44 states, and the voter data -- party affiliation, voting history, records of military service, address, age and more -- were stolen. It got worse from here.

The Trump Campaign had retained several powerful analytics corporations to "help target the candidate's efforts." This would have normally amounted to some "improvements" to Trump's speeches based on what the analysis uncovered about voter priorities.

The really stinky part happened next. The Trump Campaign provided the analytics to the "hackers" who had grabbed all the voter data. Once this was accomplished, the Russians ["hackers"] were finally able to target voters for individual propaganda messaging.

The largest effect of this was to pump anti-Hillary messaging to possible Clinton voters with the goal of dissuading them from going to the polls to vote for her.

This is what happened. Trump's "victory" came from this effect.

Okay, Targeted Propaganda, but

What, Exactly, Was the Propaganda?

Gee whiz! It just HAD to be something pretty spectacular, right?

Nope.

With illiterate Trump voters? You've got to be kidding me.

Now, by this time FOX's right wing editorial "effectivity" had already been pretty much saturated into exhaustion. The wing nuts who regularly listen to Murdoch's propaganda had already pretty much heard everything. Further, potential Clinton voters weren't paying much attention to Murdoch's drivel. The challenge facing these Trump/Russian "hackers" could not be "in kind additions" -- simply more of the same incendiary traffic FOX was already broadcasting -- directed at these Clinton Democrats.

It had to be something even more incendiary. Happily, absolutely nothing the Trump supporters and Hillary haters were consuming was inhibited by even rudimentary fact checking.

Regular visitors to this blog -- much like old MeanMesa, himself -- actually have very little familiarity with the content of this material. As a consequence of this lack of information, MeanMesa has done a "little shopping" on YOUTUBE. The "items" listed below are not anything spectacular. [There is, actually, very little of this content which is particularly "spectacular."]

Nonetheless. here they are. There is a link provided by each example. [Meanmesa suggests that none of the examples be played all the way through. YOUTUBE algorithms will "pick up" on your interest and start showering you with way too much of this stuff. The "shine" dulls pretty quickly.]

The examples posted below are NOT the product of hours upon hours of tedious, painstaking investigation. These are very casual selections extracted from literally thousands of similar videos permanently lodged in the YOUTUBE files. These are interesting here because they represent typical "messages" which were entirely available for propaganda efforts once the "target voters" and "targeted precincts" could be accessed thanks to the Trump campaign's generous recruitment of the analytics corporations.

To keep things brief, MeanMesa will include just a few extra notes on each one.

1. Automated: Some of these videos are produced using actual people and voices, but others -- very suspiciously -- are narrated by computer generated voices. Why would someone "invested" enough to create a video use a computer voice to narrate it? This makes more sense if the video is created in a place where there are simply no "convincing" English speaking choices available.

2. Evidence and fact free narratives: Some of these videos amount to a "sterile narrative," an argument presented without any supporting evidence. In these cases the video narrative amounts to a "unitary diatribe." There is no effort directed at informing or persuading the viewer.

3. Single graphic: In these cases the narrative delivered by the video is accompanied only by a static photo. The video is essentially a single photograph accompanied by an audio narrative.

Remember, many of these "message" videos were produced deep in the Russian Federation or its satellite countries where state law enforcement is conveniently weak and complicit. Interestingly, one of the example videos was "removed" from YOUTUBE while this post was being composed.

Although a "sample" visit to these videos reveals very little which might attractive to large numbers of people, the YOUTUBE "view counter," surprisingly. shows a much greater interest. This is accomplished primarily by Russian bots which load the address of the video then link -- only long enough to be counted as a "view." However, when less savvy folks -- who actually watch one of these video -- see the high "views" number, they are lulled into the idea that thousands of others have identically the same reactionary political and religious "appetites" that they have. [By the way, MeanMesa only adds a visitor to the count after someone has spent a few minutes reading one of the posts.]

Don't spend too much time on any of these or YOUTUBE will start "suggesting" hundreds or thousands of them every time you link into it.

Video shows various photographs, and the voice delivering the narrative is an English speaking female. Narrative emphasis on Muslim religion and Sharia, implying Obama was Muslim. The video is narrated by an English speaking female.